Baker’s Log – A Quick Look: Agent for H.A.R.M. (1966)

Here’s one of my favorite (though admittedly lesser) spy movies. AGENT FOR H.A.R.M. began life as a pilot film for a potential series, but was instead released theatrically. Mark Richman gets one of those sadly rare heroic parts as H.A.R.M. agent Adam Chance, assigned to protect a defected scientist working to prevent his former superior from infecting American crops with a space-born spore which turns human beings into piles of fungus! Along the way, Chance meets up with the Doc’s beauteous daughter, played by a frequently bikinied Barbara Bouchet (above).

Martin Koslak plays the bad guy, and he should’ve done more spy movies. Also in the cast is a young Robert Quarry as one of the enemy spies. Playmate Donna Michelle is Adam’s main romantic interest and the secretary to his boss, Wendell Correy. Obscure film is fairly small for a spy movie, limited to California locations already quite familiar to TV and B-movie audiences. Still, the cast is good and the music nice and jazzy.

Richman makes a good super-spy, though he’s more in the vein of a TV detective. Aside from a neat wrist-holster for his gun of choice, there isn’t a lot in the way of fantastic gadgets here. Chance has a small radio locator and a pen which acts as a monitor for his heart -so his movements can be traced back at H.A.R.M. HQ, but he mostly has to use his wits. The spore guns also come off a bit lackluster, resembling little more than toy pellet guns (which they probably are). Barbara Bouchet, though, is the best she’s ever looked, which is saying something! All in all, an amiable little adventure for a spy nut like me. Adam Chance should’ve been used again. The first posters put out proclaim “Mark Richmond” to be the star! Though it’s seen some TV play, AGENT FOR H.A.R.M. is pretty obscure. Last I was aware, it had not been issued on video or disk, officially. The indignity of it all is that the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode which featured the movie HAS been issued on disk!

Miss Israel of 1960, Aliza Gur (credited in this film as Alizia Gur) plays the unnamed “Mid-Eastern Contact.” Aliza’s most memorable role was in the James Bond film From Russia with Love, in which she played gypsy girl Vida who fought another gypsy girl, played by former Miss Jamaica contestant, Martine Beswick.

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